My Lords, I find myself not for the first time playing Spencer to the noble Lord, Lord Marks. We are almost ad idem on most of this evening’s discussions.
Clause 45 contains yet another mandatory instruction to the courts. On this occasion, as we have heard, it relates to findings of “fundamental dishonesty”. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised some semantic issues about the terminology. I am personally rather anti-semantic but there is a possible interpretation of the phrase so that it is the effect of the dishonesty being fundamental to the claim, I think, rather than the nature of the dishonesty. As the noble Lord pointed out, the phrase is used in the Civil Procedure Rules. However, we need not worry particularly about the precise terminology. The problem is that if,
“on the balance of probabilities”,
such a finding is made, the court has to strike out the claim unless, as we have heard,
“the claimant would suffer substantial injustice”,
whatever that purports to mean.
Amendment 63FG seeks, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, pointed out, to even up the balance by putting the defendants in the same position as a dishonest claimant, such that the defence would be struck out. It would certainly be legitimate to apply that to the issue of liability. Frankly, if the Government were to insist upon the full operation of their proposals in terms of the quantum issues, it would not be unjust to apply the same principle to the defendants. That is perhaps a debatable point.
However, I want to explore generally the issues a bit more widely as they have been discussed before this evening by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Marks. Certainly there are in my mind a number of questions about Clause 45, which is clearly another example of the Government’s Pavlovian reaction to pressure from their friends in the insurance industry, this time including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I am not criticising the noble Lord, who perfectly properly declares an interest, but I am saying that the Government—particularly the Conservative Party—do rather seem to be beholden to the interests of the insurance industry, which is one of their more prominent supporters. I am not suggesting for a moment that the noble Lord is in any way to be criticised personally for that. However, it is a matter of fact that—
9.45 pm